Law & Courts News in Brief

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal of Student Armband Protest

By Mark Walsh — March 10, 2009 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

The U.S. Supreme Court last week refused to hear the appeal of an Arkansas school district over students’ black-armband protests against a school uniform policy.

The Watson Chapel school district was seeking high-court review of an appeals court ruling that said the students’ protest was protected under the 1969 landmark student-speech case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District.

The district implemented the uniform policy in 2006 for grades 7-12. That fall, several students were disciplined for wearing black armbands—the same method used by the students in Tinker to protest the Vietnam War—to express their opposition to the school dress code. There was no suggestion that the armband protest disrupted school.

Both a federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, in St. Louis, ruled for the students.

The justices declined without comment to hear the district’s appeal in Watson Chapel School District v. Lowry (Case No. 08-716).

A version of this article appeared in the March 11, 2009 edition of Education Week

Events

English-Language Learners Webinar AI and English Learners: What Teachers Need to Know
Explore the role of AI in multilingual education and its potential limitations.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Mathematics Webinar
Pave the Path to Excellence in Math
Empower your students' math journey with Sue O'Connell, author of “Math in Practice” and “Navigating Numeracy.”
Content provided by hand2mind
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Recruitment & Retention Webinar
Combatting Teacher Shortages: Strategies for Classroom Balance and Learning Success
Learn from leaders in education as they share insights and strategies to support teachers and students.
Content provided by DreamBox Learning

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Law & Courts Court Upholds School Resource Officer's Use of a Taser on a Student With a Disability
A federal appeals panel upheld qualified immunity for the SRO and rejected the student's disability-discrimination and civil rights claims.
5 min read
Photo of officer with taser in holster.
iStock / Getty Images Plus
Law & Courts California Sues to Stop District From Disclosing Trans Students' Name Changes or Pronouns
The lawsuit challenges the Chino Valley district's policy requiring schools to notify parents about requests for gender changes.
5 min read
California Attorney General Rob Bonta fields questions during a press conference on Aug. 28, 2023, in Los Angeles. California's attorney general sued a Southern California school district Monday over its recently adopted policy that requires schools to notify parents if their children change their gender identification or pronouns.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta answers questions from the media on Aug. 28, 2023, in Los Angeles. Bonta is suing the Chino Valley Unified school district over a policy that requires schools to notify parents if their children change their gender identification or pronouns.
Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP
Law & Courts What Trump's Prosecution in Georgia Has in Common With the Atlanta Schools Cheating Case
The DA in the Georgia election interference case against Trump was a lead prosecutor in the school cheating scandal.
7 min read
Fulton County Chief Senior Assistant District Attorney Fani Willis takes notes while questioning University of Michigan professor Brian Jacob, a statistical analysis expert, as he testifies in a case against a group of Atlanta public school educators accused in a scheme to inflate students’ standardized test scores in Fulton County Superior Court, Ga., Feb. 10, 2015. Willis' most prominent case as an assistant district attorney was a RICO prosecution against the group of educators. After a seven-month trial, a jury in April 2015 convicted 11 of them on the racketeering charge.
Then-Fulton County chief senior assistant district attorney Fani Willis taking notes as a witness testified in a case against a group of Atlanta public school educators accused in a scheme to inflate students’ standardized test scores in Fulton County Superior Court, Ga., Feb. 10, 2015.
Kent D. Johnson/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP
Law & Courts Lawsuit Spotlights California’s Restrictions on Researchers’ Use of Its Education Data
A California lawsuit has raised questions about researchers' access to education data.
6 min read
Large magnifying glass with a diverse group of figures circled around it on laptops analyzing data
iStock/Getty